(Write a reflection!! Select "Chapter Reflection" and then click "Publish"!)
Volume Six was all about filling in the holes.
It was easy to dig them, but hard to fill them. It had always been so.
Especially when this novel was already 3.4 million words long...(I can't believe it's actually 3.4 million words!!!)
Even with a fairly detailed setting guide, I still had to go back and look through earlier chapters all the time, afraid I'd contradict something I'd established.
The Human Demon plotline, the Green Badge plotline, Tian Liu's plotline, the Official Path, Equality State, fate divination and star divination, the Three Peaks of Flying Sword, the Forest Sea Source Realm...
All those intricate threads of foreshadowing were picked up one by one, all those holes filled one by one, and that became the volume most readers spent most of the time calling "Soaring Off to the Western Heavens."
This volume was so hard to write!
Even now, when I go back and read it, I still think it was hard to write.
But the biggest problem with writing this volume wasn't the difficulty of the writing itself. I'm personally quite happy to challenge myself with difficult writing. It makes me realize again and again that I can still do better, that I still have more possibilities.
I'm happy to dig them out and share them with you, who have been walking this road with me.
But I've started to feel tired.
Writing has its periods of burnout.
I still feel fresh about the story, but my body and mind are still yearning for life.
People aren't machines, after all. Writing isn't repetitive, assembly-line work, where you can get results just by pouring out sweat.
It takes your whole heart and soul.
Especially for a writer like me.
I don't